New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia: Up to 300,000 new jobs possible from shale natural gas development.

New York: A draft environmental impact statement issued in September, 2011, by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation found that allowing hydraulic fracturing in the state could generate 55,000 new jobs in the state – nearly 25,000 full-time drilling-related jobs and more than 29,000 new jobs in other parts of the economy. See the report at:http://www.dec.ny.gov/data/dmn/rdsgeisfull0911.pdf

Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Montana, and North Dakota: 70,000 new jobs possible from oil and natural gas development.

A study released in July 2011 by the Western Energy Alliance, titled the Blueprint for Western Energy Prosperity, reported that new natural gas and oil development could create approximately 70,000 new American jobs and add $6 billion in new tax revenues to local, state and federal governments over the next decade.

A study released in February 2011 found that “Economic activity resulting from OCS development in the Beaufort Sea and Chukchi Sea could generate an annual average of 54,700 jobs nationwide, with an estimated cumulative payroll amounting to $145 billion (in 2010 dollars) over the next 50 years. It is estimated that about 30,100 jobs would be generated from the Beaufort OCS development and 24,600 jobs from development of the Chukchi Sea OCS.”

Natural gas heats nearly 70 million American homes and businesses, and cleanly generates approximately 23 percent of America’s electricity. Approximately 30 percent of America’s natural gas is used by virtually everyone because natural gas molecules are a key ingredient in the products made by U.S. industry.

For example, natural gas is a chemical building block in manufacturing everything from detergent to trash bags, insulation to paint, film to toys, pantyhose to antifreeze, swimming pool liners to food containers. The combined economic impact of natural gas development, exploration, production and usage to the U.S. economy in 2008 was $385.5 billion.

Good pay for American workers . . .

America’s natural gas exploration and production workers — the men and women on the ground — earn excellent wages, often double the national average. For example, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor reports that natural gas workers in that state earn an average of $73,000 a year.

Those exploration and production jobs help employ other Americans in a variety of businesses — including automobile manufacturing, housing, construction, manufacturing, retail sales and more.

Paying into the Federal Treasury . . .

In 2007, over $2.9 billion non-tax dollars went to the U.S. Treasury from royalties, rents and bonuses from natural gas development and production. In 2008, with higher energy prices, that number more than doubled to more more than $7.2 billion.

States earning money from production. . .

In 2007 state governments received $1.1 billion from royalties and other payments from the natural gas and oil industries. In 2008, state governments received over $1.4 billion from natural gas companies.